1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bill acceptor for use with an automatic vending machine and more particularly, to a bill position adjustment method and system for bill acceptor, which automatically adjust the width of the bill passage to correct the direction of an inserted bill into accurate alignment with a recognition device for accurate recognition.
2. Description of the Related Art
Following fast development of technology, the distance among people has been greatly shortened, our mode of living has been changed, requesting convenience and rapidness. In consequence, different automatic vending machines, auto teller machines, bill acceptors and many other automatic service machines are developed and intensively used public places to serve people without serviceman. These automatic machines are highly invited for the advantage of saving much labor and bringing convenience to people.
Further, to avoid direct loss due to counterfeiting and to avoid inadvertently passing counterfeit bills to consumers, a bill acceptor has recognition means to recognize the authenticity of a bill before receiving it. However, the bill passage of a bill acceptor is specifically designed for a particular bill of one specific width. Because different bills issued from different countries have different sizes (length, width and thickness) and different anti-counterfeit characteristics at different locations. A bill that is inserted into a bill acceptor must be kept in accurate alignment with the recognition device so that the recognition device can accurate recognize the anti-counterfeit characteristics. If an inserted bill is biased, the recognition device may reject the bill due to a recognition error. In this case, the user must insert the bill again, causing inconvenience.
Further, after recognition of a bill to be a true bill, a transmission mechanism is controlled to transfer the bill to a bill box. If a bill is biased when it is being transferred to the bill box, it may be curved in the bill box, lowering the available space of the bill box, or jammed in the bill entrance of the bill box, causing a machine failure.
There is known a bill acceptor that has two clamping arms arranged at two opposite lateral sides of the bill passage and movable relative to each other for holding an inserted bill in accurate alignment with the recognition device. However, this design is still not satisfactory in function because of the following drawbacks:    1. The bill acceptor fits only one specific kind of bills having a specific width.    2. When a wrinkled and softened bill is inserted into the bill acceptor, the bill will be deformed after clamped by the two clamping arms, causing the recognition device unable to accurate recognize the anti-counterfeit characteristics of the bill or the transmission mechanism unable to transfer the bill positively.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a bill acceptor that eliminates the aforesaid problems.